Software piracy, that is, the illegal distribution or use of software, poses a problem to enterprises worldwide. In existing anti-piracy approaches, legal users can be impacted through additional steps during installation and operation of the software, additional hardware requirements (for example, security modules, additional servers to manage licenses, etc.), and through reduced performance (for example, because of regular online verification of licenses) and availability of the software (for example, accidentally shutting down a legal customer's software because of a failure of some license server).
Additionally, in existing approaches, production costs are typically increased due to additional code that needs to be integrated and tested, and also due to the additional infrastructure required to manage licenses, registration numbers, etc., as well as the implied increased number of support requests. Existing approaches to protecting software services focus on identity management and access management based on role, attributes and privileges. Such controls, however, can be rendered ineffective when the underlying agreements are ignored or breached, or when the terms of the agreement are not faithfully communicated to all users and uses over time.